Hummus or houmous is a Levantine recipe used as a seasoning sauce. It is a sort of chickpea puree mixed with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic.
Today, hummus is widespread throughout the Middle East (including Turkey) and North Africa (especially in Morocco); represents one of the symbols of Middle Eastern cuisine in the world.
"Hummus" is an Arabic word that literally means "chickpeas", but the full name of the Arab recipe would be hummus bi tahina, which obviously means "chickpeas with tahina".
The spelling of the word "hummus" (the same as the Italian one) is considered by some to be inconsistent. Indeed, " hummus " represents the standard American spelling, while (based on phonetics) in England the term " houmous " is predominantly used. Among the other spellings they are more widespread: hummous, hommos, humos, hommus and hoummos .
